


a stupid question. she is sadu.

by HolyMakkirel



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Coming of Age, Gen, Lots of burning in this one! Lots of melting flesh, Reincarnation? ;), Religious Imagery & Symbolism, no character death but monster death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:33:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21586921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolyMakkirel/pseuds/HolyMakkirel
Summary: among the dotharl, the return of the dead is something to be celebrated. when one is reborn, the tribe ensures that their identity is known early, and few would think to doubt the tribe. unfortunately, sadu is exceptional.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40





	a stupid question. she is sadu.

**Author's Note:**

> based almost entirely on the fact that one of sadu's lines in the naadam sounds like she's in pain when casting her magic. i love her very much
> 
> title comes from dialogue in the msq quest "The Undying Ones"

Of all the tribes in all the Steppe, none were quite so confident as the Dotharl. True, the Oronir were more arrogant, but arrogance is no more confidence than obsession is love, the former a bitter perversion of the latter. But of course the Dotharl would be so self-assured; after all, every one of them knew they had earned their right to live, for every one of them knew that they’d been around before, and proven themselves worthy to return. But they were not all born so confident.

The day a Dotharli child is born, no shortage of scrutiny falls upon them. Their expressions, their emotions, their mannerisms; none escape the analysis that makes the tribe so confident in their appraisal that the soul of one so dearly missed has reunited with the tribe. This meant, of course, that there was no room for questioning. From before the child could speak or stand, it was known who they were, if not by them then by others. She was Qoyar. He was Munglig. She was Mergen. He was Mauci. By the time the child could think for themselves, they would have no thoughts left to doubt with. And so it was for her. The body may have shifted, taking its first female vessel in three reincarnations, but it was beyond questioning.

She was Sadu.

Everyone was convinced of it. The way she carried herself as she waddled through soft floor of the yurts. The ferocity with which she bit into her first solid food. The confidence she exuded around her playmates. None questioned for a second that Sadu, destined khatun of the tribe, had returned to them once more.

And then it came time for her to study combat. She might not have been quite so capable in it as they believed she would, but none of them questioned for a second the judgement of the elders. Surely, she was Sadu, and not a drop of doubt existed in the whole of the tribe, except for the great floods of it dancing in the little girl’s head.

For Sadu, the one before her, was masterful in the ways of the fist, and the two before him experts of weaponry. And yet Sadu, for all the training she received, could not manage the forms she was shown, nor could any number of callouses from swinging axes and swords teach her how to strike the training dummies properly. She tried archery, spearplay, even the techniques of Doman swordsmen and Hannish dancers passing by Reunion, and yet nothing stuck. 

Outsiders, already doubtful of Dotharli traditions, took her for a laughingstock. She was to them like proof that the belief in reincarnation was nothing but a whimsical desire to cling to the past, and the continued insistence of her tribesmen in their rightness as proof of that. Still, not for a second did any of her people doubt her, though a few began to doubt she’d be ready to lead in the Naadam when she came of age. Whether she was as powerful in this life as she was in her past ones, she was Sadu, and none of them could be shaken in that belief. None of them, except the girl herself, who had never met any other Sadu, and as such had no reason to believe in her similarity to them.

At some point, enough was enough. Sadu fled from the tribe. She walked east, and east, and east, until her feet were too tired to walk any longer. Like a lost child, she found herself gravitating towards her mother, and when she finally collapsed it was in the comfort of her presence and the shadow of the Dusk Throne. Unfortunately, it was also directly in the path of several roaming Manzasiri, who saw the young child as an excellent source of nutrition for the night. As they approached, Sadu crawled weakly closer to the great ruin, hoping to take shelter in it. If she had the energy to look up she would realize that it was certainly too far away for her to even hope to reach, especially considering that the slope up the structure was on the opposite end of it from her. But still, she crawled. If this was it, it would be on her own terms; the Dotharl fought to live and not to die, and she would hope every second that something could present itself now and let her fight to live.

As though Nhaama heard her prayers, Sadu’s hand bumped against something cold and heavy. Gripping for it in the sands, she felt its long, rounded shape in her hardened palms. It was not so different from the weapons she’d held before, except its head seemed weightless; as she pulled it from the earth, she realized it was a staff, though little more than an orb on a stick. She closed her eyes opened her mouth to speak what she assumed were her last words, feeling a warmth she could only imagine to be Manzasiri breath well behind her. 

And then, she opened her eyes. The orb, so dull a second ago, now glowed a bright blue that seemed to draw her more than any glow of the sun might. Turning around, she realized the Manzasiri were nowhere near her yet, still a good few yalms away, and that the heat behind her was still behind her. She needed it in front of her, urgently, and she didn’t care how it got there. 

That was the first time Sadu cast a spell. It had no name, no form, no technique, and any true Thaumaturge or Black Mage would have winced at what it must have been doing to her aether. But she cared not, for soon the air was filled with the smell of singed Manzasiri hair and burning flesh, the great beast falling to the ground before her. Sadu was aflame as well, though only internally; while her exterior remained steely cool, she could feel every droplet of aether that flowed through her, and they felt as if she’d eaten a bonfire. But there was no cause for celebration yet, as a half dozen more Manzasiri were still on their way to corner her.

Unfortunately for Sadu, she had no idea what a spell truly _was_. She could force aether through her staff, sure, and will it to act for her, but her form was nonexistent. Faced with certain death, however, her choice was clear: Do what you can, and fight to live.

Plunging the base of the staff into the ground, Sadu closed her eyes. That heat that passed through her just a moment ago… where was it?..

_Oh._

_It’s everywhere._

That was the moment when Sadu learned to draw aether from the world around her.

That was the first time Sadu had truly filled herself with fire. 

She took it in, and painted it with her will, and as it flowed out from her body to her staff and to the ground around her, great constructs of stone rose to her side. They took aim at the Manzasiri, and with blasts of starlight, the beasts were obliterated in an instant. For every second of the assault, Sadu felt the fire in her. It burnt. It hurt. It aspected her entire being to flame in a body that was not made to contain that. It made her want to cry in agony, and for all she knew, she might have; no one was around to hear her but the beasts that sizzled in the sands, and she wouldn’t have heard herself over the inferno that flitted between her ears. 

But soon, it subsided, and she had found her calling. It wasn’t dignified, and it wasn’t what she’d expected, and she wasn’t fully sure how it worked, but it was just what she needed. No Sadu before her was ever as capable in combat as she was, for fists and blades don’t bend the earth to ones will and turn moving mountains of muscle into blistering mounds of melted flesh.

The woman who returned to the tribe that night did so with a staff, soon repaired and outfitted to match the prestige and the deadliness of its wielder. A gift from the mother who hung the skies, it brought her the fire she needed. It quickly became a part of her, as inseparable from her body as her soul was. When it came time for her to take a surname, there was no doubt in the village as to what it should be, and doubly none in the mind of the woman herself.

She was Heavenflame.

She was Sadu.


End file.
